Why Is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?

Alice sat with her hand firmly placed beneath her chin. She’d been pondering a question in her mind for some hours now. Lord Ascot, her partner, had been drumming on the dark wood table with his fingers. He’d come to Miss Kingsly’s home in order to discuss some new business ideas. However, he’d unfortunately set a date that wasn’t so… convenient. Even as he walked into the room, Sir Ascot found Alice sitting in a plush chair, deep in thought. An hour or so went by without as much as a word from the twenty year old.
Finally, the lord could no longer take it. A horrid thud, courtesy of the man’s fist against the table, echoed in the lavish room. “Miss Alice,” Sir Ascot’s voice shook, “if you please.”
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Alice suddenly said, completely ignoring the question thrown at her. Her brown eyes had not moved an inch from their fixated position on the small coffee table set next to her chair.
“WH-what on earth are you blabbering on about now?” Ascot questioned, confused beyond all reckoning. He’d been one of the few to accept the girl’s curious musings as more than ideas induced by madness. Still, this was far too ridiculous for even him to tolerate.
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” the girl repeated, finally looking up at her partner.
Ascot sighed. “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said, massaging his now-aching forehead. This young girl was simply too much. A ‘hm’ was the only reply the lord earned. About another minute went by before Ascot lost his patience fully. “Alice Marie Kingsly!” he shouted with another pound of his fist, “Can we please get on with our business meeting!”
“Hm?” Alice looked up at the older man and realization dawned on her features. “Oh. Oh!” she gasped, “Oh I’m so sorry, sir! I didn’t mean to-“
“Just-“ he said, holding up his hand, “Never mind what you meant let’s just discuss the matters of the growing trade.”
“Yes sir,” Alice nodded.
~*~
Truly, Alice really hadn’t meant to day dream about that silly riddle. However there was a ridiculously nagging little termite at the back of her mind. The twenty year old could somehow recall that it had been festering there since her last… adventure had ended.
Of course she knew it was silly. Even Alice had to admit that. The Mad Hatter himself couldn’t come up with his own ridiculous answer to his riddle. However, Alice was absolutely sure that one existed.
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” she asked herself again once her partner in business had left in a carriage. “There just has to be an answer!” Alice stamped her foot.
Now she paced her room, still infatuated with the bothersome puzzlement. It was nearly midnight and yet the girl simply couldn’t find the urge to rest. Alice muttered incomprehensible grumbles as her slippers began to wear a rut through the carpet. Growling finally rolled off Alice’s tongue from utter frustration.
“Oh that silly Hatter!” she finally exclaimed. “It’s his own fault for making up a riddle without an answer!” A creak echoed within the room and Alice turned to find a very angry looking maid staring at her with a burning hatred. “Oops,” the blond murmured. Lorelei continued to glare at her younger employer until Alice finally laughed nervously and slipped beneath the covers of her bed. The woman nodded and stormed out of the room, slamming the door on the way. Not until the sound of footsteps faded, did Alice finally let out a sigh.
“Stupid, stupid riddle,” she muttered to herself one final time. Her eyelids finally closed over the chocolate orbs.
Now, concerning her previous adventures, you have probably concluded that dreaming is not a healthy thing for this particular woman. Alice would disagree, but this dream was rather… unnerving.
First there was nothing. Alice simply stared into a dark abyss. Then a light suddenly glared into Alice’s cinnamon eyes. With a tight squeeze, the twenty-year-old did her best to block out the irritating burst of sunlight. Finally, when she felt it had died down, Alice opened her eyes. Before her laid what she least expected: a gruesome bloodshed. It looked to be a chaotic mess from Alice’s standpoint, however the knowledge buried within the blond waves said otherwise. Concern meshed with dread consumed Alice’s expression. She knew this place.
From her standpoint on a hill, Alice could see everything perfectly. The battle was not normal, for it stood on a checkered floor of black and white. There were white knights with their helmets in the likeness of a horse’s head that were mostly on the left side with some stragglers in the middle where they ferociously clashed with their opponents. Those being red flattened looking things with symbols of hearts in different numbers printed into the bloody crimson armor. It was all so familiar, as ridiculous as it sounded.
A recognizable roar caught Alice’s attention by ear. Looking across to the opposite side of the board, (for that is what it was) to find a horrid looking creature atop a ruinous tower. Alice never understood why there were ruins of what seemed to be a watchtower on the edge of the game board. However, at the time, she didn’t exactly think about it. For Alice was preoccupied with the creature she mentioned before. The thing was vaguely draconic bodily wise, but its face made it look more like it should’ve been an aquatic animal. Fins flared out from the sides of its scaly head, and teeth that would’ve made a beaver feel ashamed of his own incisors jutted over the thing’s lower lip. Alice knew from firsthand experience that the silliness of its overbite was outdone by the fact that they were immensely sharp and were followed by shark-like, razor sharp canines that took the liberty of lining the rest of the slimy mouth. A shiver caused a small earthquake through Alice’s slim figure. In hopes that she would never have to see the thing again, Alice had quite affectively blocked out the memories of how close she’d come to being torn apart by those ‘beaver teeth’. Memories of the horrifying Jabberwocky.
Alice shivered once more as she recalled the ridiculous name, and decided to instead direct her optics to the battle below her. In horror, Alice suddenly felt sick. She could see Stayne, the conniving, deceitful, most disgusting form of a man (in Alice’s personal opinion) crossing blades with the one other humanoid male of Wonderland: Hatter. Without really knowing why, Alice had developed a deep craving to see Hatter again. Of course she would’ve liked to see everyone else as well, but if Alice was forced to choose only one, Hatter’s who she would pick. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most comforting thing to watch him fighting who was supposed to be one of the strongest fighters on the opposing side.
Despite that he was winning.
Another roar shook the earth and Alice looked back to the tower. This time Alice only barely managed to keep her supper down, sure that she would be making a mess as soon as she awoke. She could see herself, not as in a mirror, but herself from the past when this event took place, fighting the Jabberwocky. The silver armor gleamed in the sun without a single drop of blood that the other warriors seemed to be covered in. Alice squeezed her eyes shut as she dealt the final blow to the Jabberwocky. She still remembered as the Vorpal sword sank into the scaly flesh of the monstrosity. It was slow and Alice found that she had to saw the sword a little to get through the thick muscle. As much as you’d like to think, you can’t just swing a sword and hope to hack something off.
She turned away to the dirt floor as she heard the thumping of the Jabberwocky’s head bouncing from stone to stone until it finally hit one final time to the floor. After regaining the confidence that she’d be able to keep whatever meal she’d recently had within the bowels of her stomach, Alice turned back to the chess board. The people had stopped fighting to stare at the severed cranium in shock. The Red Queen in an attempt to save her crown made a ridiculous excuse to have Alice decapitated, but was ruthlessly ignored by her soldiers. With a smile on her lips, Alice observed as the golden crown that once rested upon the abnormally large head of the queen floated from the crimson tresses. As it traveled across the air, the shape as well as the color changed to silver with sapphire stones imbedded into the metalwork. Finally, its journey ended as the beautiful crown rested on the White Queen’s head.
The smile simply grew brighter as the newly redubbed queen banished her elder sister as well as Stayne. Alice even laughed as Hatter preformed the dance he called Fudderwacken. However, everything has an ending. In sorrow, the smile finally disappeared from Alice’s features. She watched as the queen glided to the forgotten head of the Jabberwocky and took out a small vile. She held it up to the knife-like teeth and let the fluorescent blood drip into the crystalline bottle.
A tear almost squeezed through Alice’s eye as the queen handed her the bottle. Hatter stood behind her, looking forlorn. He really didn’t want to see her leave, and to tell the truth, Alice hadn’t really wanted to leave either. Still, the twenty year old watched her past self sip the violet liquid and disappear. Practically in tears, Alice shut her eyes to the dream, covering them with her hands as if they were shields. Then the last thing Alice expected to hear reached her eardrums. Someone was laughing.
“Well, dear Alice,” a woman’s voice spoke from behind her. Alice whipped her head around to see a tall and stately woman standing behind her. She was looking beyond Alice at the game board. It became clear to Alice that she couldn’t see her. The woman wore a beautiful black and white gown that was covered with an onyx cloak. However, what really caught Alice’s attention was the gorgeous silver crown that stood atop long, pitch black tresses. Black pearls decorated the exterior of the metal work and diamonds were fixed into the spires of the circlet. This woman was a queen.
“It seems that you’ve managed to help me,” the queen continued. “My dear sister won’t be a bother anymore.” The black painted lips smiled eerily. She turned and began to stride down the hill with one final comment, “Let the game begin.”
Alice awoke with a start. She found her body sticky with sweat, and the one sheet that still remained on the bed had cemented itself to the little bare skin that showed through Alice’s nightgown. Shaking her head as if to free the, to Alice, nightmare, she heard a knocking at her door, apparently the reason she woke up.
With a yawn, Alice slid out from the sheet and fetched her robe. Eyes still battling the fog of sleep, she opened the door. Startled, Alice found Lord Ascot standing in front of her, a flustered and exhausted Lorelei walking back to her own quarters in a nightgown. Ascot too was still in his own nightwear, with his feet covered by slippers.
“W-what are you doing here at this hour?” Alice asked.
Her colleague sighed as if in spite of himself and with an aggravated voice said, “I have an answer to your riddle.”
The young woman blinked in confusion. She had no intention of having Lord Ascot finding an answer to the riddle. The Hatter himself who made the riddle couldn’t even find one. However, being the curious girl she was, answered “And what is it?”
With yet another sigh Ascot told her, “Believe it or not, I have actually come up with several. The first being ‘they have both been written on’, and the second ‘they both produce notes although they are very flat, and finally ‘the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes’.”
Alice simply blinked again. “How-?”
“I think you yourself are to blame,” her friend cut her off, in frustration at himself. “I couldn’t stop thinking about that bothersome riddle since I left here this afternoon.”
“Oh,” Alice looked down at her barren feet, and then laughed. “Well that just proves him wrong then!” she said triumphantly.
The elder man stared at his partner in confusion. “Who are you talking about?”
“Hatter!” Alice told him excitedly as if that solved everything. When Alice saw that her friend didn’t understand she elaborated, “The man who made up the riddle. He himself couldn’t find an answer.”
Ascot was caught off guard. “You mean you already knew that there was no answer?!”
“But there is an answer!” Alice argued with a wide smile, “and you found it!”
“That- that’s not the point!” the man stuttered. “Why would you become so immersed in a riddle that you thought had no answer?!”
Alice shrugged. “Perhaps… I am simply mad,” she speculated, mostly to herself.
Ascot stared at her, praying that he didn’t just hear that dreadful sentence. “Pardon?”
“Oh nothing,” Alice waved her hand and smiled. “It was jolly good of you to come sir,” she said blissfully, “and I am eternally grateful to you, for the answer to the riddle.” Before Ascot could even reply, his young associate was bidding him a good night and promptly shut the door.
With a shake of his head, Stephen took the liberty of showing himself to the door. It seemed that he would never understand that girl, and if he did, he’d probably regret it.